


Burnt Out Cigarettes.

by fearless_seas



Series: The Three Trials of Jacky Ickx. [3]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Death, Falling In Love, Flirting, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Sex, Intimacy, Kissing, M/M, Musical Instruments, POV Second Person, Resolved Sexual Tension, Shower Sex, Smut, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 03:03:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14607852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: Cannot Francois Cevert see before it is too late that Jacky Ickx can't pretend to be who he wants.





	Burnt Out Cigarettes.

**Author's Note:**

> French is my second language, let me know if there is anything I need to change. Translations at the end, if needed. If you need to contact me my Tumblr is @sonofhistory or @pieregasly. Enjoy.

          You’ve never seen anyone so beautiful. Cologne madness and darkened shades over pure blue eyes, the brightest you’ve ever seen. You never paid much mind to him before; Jackie Stewart had a new teammate in the 1971 season. _Good_ , you though, _another to send rolling into a metal coffin_ (it is all part of the game, isn’t it?). He was always clinging to Jackie, an arm over his shoulder or knocked at the elbow. You peer over your drink from across the room and catch his hands as they trail over the piano in the corner. The melody is melancholy and you set your glass down on the nearest table to pull yourself nearer to the instrument; or, perhaps, it lured you.

          He’s sitting there: his eyes drifting in and out angelically and his sunglasses are off for the first time. You stare, you don’t realize that you are staring until his eyes flutter open and land upon you penetratively. For a moment you feel it, you can truly understand why women fawn so severely over him. There you both are, meeting at the center together for the first time like lost phantoms searching for gravity. It begins with small talk, his muscled hands are still ghosting over the piano. You flicker down to them, examine them move over the keys as he keeps his eyes on you and never lets off for even a second.

          You say something eventually. “I do not believe I ever caught your name,” your heavily accented English makes the corner of his mouth pry open.

          He is following you hungrily, moving as though the keys of the piano were the different ladders of vertebrae in your back. But you can feel them on you, sense it stronger when you lean over the top and rest a chin in your hands. “Francois,” he gave a wide, toothy smile, “Francois Cevert.”

          You can tell so many stories about him. Their voice cannot be heard perfectly through accent but his voice in your ear was fragile and grated as a blunt knife. They are seducing you even as they do not want you. They’ll compliment your hair or your eyes with their hands and glances alone. The sun’s rays created shadows that danced along his back and flirted with his neck. It was in his eyes, so soft, and so, _so_ cold. It was innocent at first.

          “ _Autre_ Jacky!”

          That was what he called you. He’d notice you sitting on the barrier in your driving suit with it patent at the neck. He’ll grin, so broad you wondered if it could crack through the boundaries of his face. In that moment, feet propped up and backs ached to the sky, he’ll speak to you when no one else does; he will touch you when no one else will. The calluses of his fingers brush the nape of your collar and he scrapes over your bare spot of revealed chest. He brings a scent of smoke and whiskey to the atmosphere: bitter, frigid, and delightfully warm all the same. You share an intimate moment when he tugs the cigarette from his lips in a slow, drawn movement and turns to you.

          “ _Est-ce que tu le veux?_ ”, he motions it towards you, tapping a bit of ash off when your eyes meet. You don't smoke but you lean forward and take it in between your lips while it is still curled in his fingers. He focuses on you, his lips parting as your eyes never leave one another. You breathed in his alluring fragrance, cherished the intimate connection. His tongue pokes through the lips and you enjoy this power you are holding over him. _Give the both of you time to be more intimate_.

          “Francois!”, a sudden cry by the garage drags his hand away and leaves your lips dry and parched. Your mouth tastes like him, you can hanker him on your inner cheeks. Jackie is motioning by the wall, calling for him, beckoning him over. Francois jumps down, your shoulders fall, the tension crinkling your brown exits your bones and you almost fall back onto the cement track in comfort. You cannot help thinking now: _it would of been a better way to go_.

          They toss the cigarette onto the pavement and wave sweetly like a child, “ _Au revoir, autre_ Jacky.” He leaves, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his overalls and joins Jackie. You notice this: the way they look at their mentor. Their lingering gazes, the extended stares and tracing glances. You do not admit it because you see him and find that some divine artist dipped their brush into his soul and used it to paint his eyes. Between alcohol, smoke, lies and loving glimpses, you view it after it is too late.

          After a while, Francois coins you “ _le petit Belge_ .” He holds your hand over the piano, taps the keys with your digits. He sits so close you can feel his breath when his arm moves over yours in the timeless silhouette your hips create together. Just as you know your power: he does too. He whispers softly in ways that he knows causes ripples of arousal to crawl into your pants, holds you to make prickles of sensation trickle over the back of your neck. It is too late. _It is too late to go back now_. Across the room, Francois is with his teammate in linked elbows and Jackie does not see it; _how do they not see it?_ You excuse yourself onto the balcony where the street is just below a hellish night sky. You curse and you swear as if there were anyone there to hear you. When you return, Francois is once again at the piano and he gestures for you to join him again. His eyes are ruby, you notice it when you approach, as if he may break into tears.

          You sit on the bench, on the end. “ _Est-ce que tu vas bien?_ ”, you canvass to be sure.

          They grin weakly and pull on the lapel of your coat to pull you closer, “ _Joue avec moi_ , Jacky.” They never answer and begin to play once again. His face is tight with pain. Jackie is one end of the room with stern concentration and his face buried in his hands. It is at this piano where he kissed you. The room had cleared, it was three in the morning and you don’t feel the slightest bit tired. You cannot count how many times his palm has slid discretely over your thigh. “ _As-tu jamais aimé?_ ” _have you ever loved,_ it sounds sad, the way he says it. The question takes you by surprise. Francois’s fingers are kissing your hands the same way Jochen's once did. Unintentionally. 

          You are facing him, “ _Oui, toujours_ .” _I am forgetting their laughter like a mental photograph lost to time_. Guilt wades into your soul and pools at your ribs.

          His eyes. You’ve never witnessed something so exquisite. They reflect pain, hidden underneath the flecked colors and allure. He holds storms and the seas, perhaps even the sky above. “ _J'aime tes yeux_ …”, you don’t look down but his hand is resting on your knee. It begins ascending  higher as his face grows closer and the harmony of the mood is swelling. You are dizzy, twirling mindlessly and lost, drowning. _Where can we go from here but up?_ They are so close and the hand closes on your inner thigh as you gasp. There is another hand, creeping up behind and the warm fingers send swells of pleasure as they slide to your hip. They’ve opened a space, cracked an obscure coffin into the light and shut the distance. You think he wanted you like this, vulnerable and with alcohol brewing in your throat.

          At the piano that he kisses you. It is there that you thread your fingers through the back of his hair and feel his lips against yours. Deep down, you recognize: you are a pawn and Francois isn’t thinking of you. It is why he clenches his eyes so roughly when he kisses, why he cannot peer you in the eyes when he touches you because you are not who he wants. You smell his leather jacket and the sex. Everytime you are apart he whispers:

          “Jackie.”

          It is not you, but you are too far along to stop now.

          Six months into these interactions you’re in his hotel room. Your back is to the mattress and you sense his hand press between your thighs. Between moans you see it once again: he has averted his gaze. You allow him to continue, allow him to slip your shirt over your head and reach for your belt buckle. _Don’t do it, Jacky, don’t do it to yourself_. Of course you don’t listen because you cannot even trust yourself anymore. His shirt is off and he kisses you, he kisses you and he kisses you as if he wishes to never breathe again. Maybe, a part of you would prefer that. You stop him before it goes any farther, catch his wrists.

          “ _Arrêtez._ ”

          So, he does. But he also puts his clothes back on and leaves you.

          One day you’re on his bed and you question him: “ _Pourquoi fais-tu cela?_ ”, you ponder how can he continue to do this to himself.

          Francois is a smart man. They know immediately after the question has been posed and they sigh dramatically. “ _Parce-que je l'aime._ ” At this, you fall back against the pillow and quietly ask him to leave. He does. You knew the answer and yet you still asked. You don’t feel the need to pay attention to the world ending because it has happened so many times and it begins once again in the morning. You have to remind yourself: _he’ll never love you_. And you notice it, the way he looks at Jackie, a lost soulless expression of a man who has witnessed his sand world crumble into dust. You play the part: you pretend you are the other Jackie. You pretend you can ever be him.

          A week later you are knocking on his door. He doesn’t have the time to let you in because you rush and slam the door behind you. His brows narrow into surprise when you crash into him, allowing his lips to cover yourself, to take every part of you in them. He is gripping your waist so tight you swear that there will be bruises in the morning. You don’t care. You are kissing him, kissing him and kissing him until he is backing you against the headboard as you climb on top of him. His fingers are tugging on your shirt, he is touching you, stroking your chest and running his hands across your back. Even when his lips are not on you, you feel the pads of his fingers kissing you with every semblance.

          You don’t think of Jochen and the little part of you he had once embraced. You think only of Francois--Francois Cevert alone.

          His lips suddenly loosen and for once he beams you in the eyes. “ _Ce n'est rien, non?_ ”, and internally you wince as if a wound has broken the stitching you’ve sewn. You want to push the ebony hair out of his eyes so that you can see his face better, you yearn to touch the rouge shade of his cheeks and the bright coloring of his neck. “ _Il ne peut jamais savoir_ ,” all six feet of him is beautiful to the grasp and irresistible in every way. But, they never want Jackie to know. Usually, the better part of yourself will tell you to say no, climb up and bang the door shut behind as you leave. Instead, you nod, feeling the bits of Francois shatter and poke you underneath like a million shards of shiny, broken glass. _He doesn’t love you_ , remember that.

          “ _Bien sûr._ ”

          You are pursuing the one thing to set your sad soul free. Maybe this was it. You are lying to yourself, however, every time you say that. He nods and kisses you. You taste him, sense the loss on his tongue and the ache in every shaking breath. Eventually he has you naked, defenseless and reaches for you, touches you in ways you thought were not possible. You are between his legs, pulling his jeans off and he has his eyes half shut. Words are not able to convey a thought either of you are thinking with lips that cannot do justice to emotion so deep. The first time you sleep with a man he is pressing into you, hitting every sweet spot with every thrust while his head buries into your neck. This first time, he has his eyes close. This time, he manages to call out a name beneath the gratification and sounds:

          “ _Jackie..._ ”

          He is curving his back and for a tiny moment you believe it was yours. You are convinced it was your name that danced out of his lips. He finishes and rolls over onto his side. You won’t pretend to be who Francois wants. You cannot do it. But you do convince yourself, perhaps, between everything there truly is a man willing to love you. Because you do. You truly, truly do. No matter this, you go back to your room before morning and shower. You have no interest of cleaning Francois from you: you are cleaning yourself, wiping yourself of your name. _I will never be who he wants_.

          “ _L'aimes-tu toujours?_ ”, you question him a year later. He doesn’t remark but instead rolls over to you on the mattress and kisses you. His fingers create a promenade over your jaw, chart the burns on your back like constellations of closing stars. Slow, timeless events as this do not last. Before long he collides back into you, juts a knee in between your thighs and plucks you upright into his lap, gripping your hips meanly as you grind over him. You recess for an occasion when one cannot deny the passion, the electricity, the _fire_. It is an awakening. He is feasting upon you as if you were prey. You turn to shut off the light, as he always wants, but he catches your wrist before you can do it.

          “ _Non_ ,” he shakes his head. _I want to see you; all of you_. This time it lasts all night and neither leaves before the sunrise. In the shadow, your shadows, bounce over the ceiling and uplift the bareness of your souls. His fingers are playing with the rough skin of your back, swiping them across your body and caressing you as he continues his pace into you. You have your face buried in a pillow. In the middle, a groan falls out of you and he draws away sharply. You try to peek your head up in curiosity but he has flipped you over in one quick motion onto your back and now you’re slammed against the headboard. He’s on you with large, unblinking eyes, attending your every flinch of movement--staring, studying you. For once, as he quickens the pace, he see you and thinks: _Jacky_. You trail fingers over his back until sunrise.

         The next week he doesn’t wait until you get a room. He wins his first race at Watkins Glen and after the podum slips you into the end of the garage, pushing you up against the desk. You have him breathing frantically over your neck. “ _Aimes-tu ça_?”

          You curl in pleasure at this.

          He is sleeping with his strong arms over you when you wonder to him: “ _Pouvez-vous m'aimes maintenant?_ ” It is somber and your eyes are fixed upon him as if you’d been trained to only see him. A painter, a sculptor: a starving artist searching for prose. The words are trained, ready on your tongue and hopeful.

          In the evening of October 5th (you will forever remember the date because of what happened the next day) the verses are prepared, resting idly on your mouth. You can relish the syllables there. You are standing in the dust outside of the Tyrell garage with these words composed in your pocket like a bouquet of flowers you may gift him. It is stupid, peeking your head in and finding Francois look at Jackie as if he holds the world. You will forever be insignificant, you realize this and the sentence wilts in your coat before it even has time to bloom. You are foolish, you know, because you allowed yourself for a moment to believe it was possible. That _this_ was possible. You still allow him to touch you that night. It starts on the couch and ends in the shower. The warm water pelting him as Francois’s arms shield you, holding you against the wall with your legs wrapped over stomach and you’re dragging him closer and closer until the white flash and you’re withering from the sensations pumping through your veins. Nothing was more dangerous than this. No matter racing or his life; this, these moments with Francois were dangerous and oh, so delicate.

          You’re drying yourself off and Francois rustles off your hair himself with a towel. It is small actions like this that occasionally make you think when he says Jacky, that he means just that: _Jacky_ (not anyone else). You. You’re gripping the edge of the table and you can see your sad reflection in the faded, chipped wood: the swipe of hickory curls and soft caramel eyes. To trust is so overbearing, but your whisperings will fall on deaf ears. You scope up, your knuckles are white. “ _Pouvez-vous m'aimes maintenant?_ ”

          Francois hums, running the towel through his hair and turning to slip his jeans over his legs. “ _Quelle_?”

          “Will you ever love me?”

          It was the way he hesitated then. The way he paused and his eyes were round and doe-eyed. They both knew they weren’t finished. It was his body tempo, how every muscles stiffened with something--anything--to say. They were both skinny to begin with, thin as ice as it cracked from beneath. Francois is searching lamely for an excuse, trying to come closer and you continue backing away.

          “ _Si vous plait_ , Jacky--”

          “-- _Je ne peux jamais être lui. François, tu ne vois pas_?” Cannot he see that he will never be _him_.

          They are silent. For once they look just as you always do around him: vulnerable, durable and secretly so very afraid. They come nearer despite the distant and you step farther way until your back is to the wall.

          “Jacky--”, he begs and pleads, because he _is_ begging.

          You choke out a reply, “ _laisser_ .” You’d seen Francois cry before, held him as he weeped on your shoulder and brushed knees at every funeral. But one cannot eulogize a piece of another when it dies within yourself. That is what happened then: something invisible shriveled and disappeared in your chest. “ _À moins que tu m'aimes, pars_.” You are on the floor and you feel Francois’s feet as they tremble where they stand. But with your knees up to your chest, weak and torn on the carpet of your hotel room, you sense him. You recognize his touch across your body, in your heart, over your mind. Can you hear the anthem of his laugh as he left? Are you the only one who can realize his absence long before the door shuts? You are. Most of all: every bit of skin he has touched pulsates with dying life. You know him before he is gone. You miss him even as he was standing over you a few moments ago.

          You thought, perhaps, he’ll come back.

          So, you wait.

          You’re up until four waiting. You will wait the rest of your life and forever into your older years. This is how it always is for you: the waiting.

          In the morning of the 6th you tug up your uniform and avoid the Tyrell garage. Occasionally you believe you hear your name but before you cast a glance over your shoulder you ask yourself: _which one of us is it?_ Denny Hulme catches your arm as you climb the fence towards the grid.

          “Someone is looking for you,” he notifies and you feel a sharp incision in your abdomen.

          You are rubbing a sleeve over a spot on your helmet, the black shade is fading out. “Who is it?”

          “Francois Cevert.”

          But you are not surprised.

          You wave Denny away and climb into your car. Curiosity gets the better of you and you roll your head down the track. Francois had been watching you, he waved shakily but you shake your head, turn around rapidly and slam your visor down over your eyes to hide the rage. You ambience their eyes on you a while before you begin to file out of the pit lane for qualifying. Years later, you can recall that moment. It is hazier of course due to age, but you remember the last time you saw him. You think: _he wants you_. But you know: _he doesn’t need you_.

          After it happens you feel absolutely nothing. You do not cry or fall to the dust of the earth. When you first saw the blue Tyrell upside down on the barrier you swerved over your car, tore off your helmet and got out. Jody is panting over the grass and you are the devil because you pray: please, not _him_. You thought you were right until you find Jackie still and focusing at the steaming remains of his car, of his friend. You don’t do anything but return to your vehicle. If you decided to cry, not a person would see. Jackie rides over the curve where they’d lost control over six times as if hoping each time that his teammate wouldn’t be there. That--you are breathing harshly now and it interrupts you.                                     

          That Francois Cevert wasn’t dead.

          You hold Jackie once again in the dirt and realize they do not know the nature of you and Francois. You cannot blame him for things not going your way. You stay in your hotel room and smoke packets for two whole days. You spent an eternity wrapped in cigarette smoke, cologne and him while hoping (as you did when he left you), perhaps he’ll come back.

          Denny Hulme passed you a letter when you returned to the paddock. “I forgot to give this to you days ago, before qualifying.” _Silly_ , you think, _not one person knows of us_. It is a normal white envelope, you open it and slip the paper out into your hands absentmindedly. Your eyes are giving out. 

          “Who is it from?”, you mutter. 

          “Cevert.”

          You halt immediately, clench the paper to your breast and wait until you are on the balcony of your hotel room to read it.

_I love you; le suel Francois, pour mon seul Jacky._

          You rip it up, toss it all over the side of the balcony to the winds that acted and carried his ashes across valleys and plains of color and light. You do several things that night. You smoke and allow the weight of unsaid words to trample upon your poor soul. You also cry, sit still for hours with the city in sight and allow the bundles of tears to come dripping down your chin. If Francois was here he’d manage to light a flame with them somehow.

           Everywhere. He is in the morning sun, the wind and the rain; in the air once breathed and sights never seen; in sad songs and beautiful melodies; in fear and pain; among whispers and cries. You drive with the radio off now. Francois could come to you centuries later with a different face and you will still remember how his tender, enduring embrace was on your skin. Somewhere between stardust or the creation of everything and the collapse; there is a pulse that echoes of you and him. At the end of it all, when one leaves this world, you give up your possessions and memories. You take only love with you. It is all you carry from one life to the next and so forth. So you whisper to the rising sun as you have never done before and said the words that were already playing off your tongue before he told you himself in writing.

          “I love you, Francois.”

          It was already confirmed, long before your answer is in the open atmosphere: eventually, after years, he did truly love you. And you? You gave him the power to leave you dead.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTES:  
> \- Francois Cevert's first official season in F1 was in 1971 on Tyrell with Jackie Stewart as his teammate.  
> \- Francois Cevert was closest with Jackie Stewart.  
> \- Francois Cevert's first race was won at Watkins Glen the same year he died, 1973.  
> \- Francois Cevert died during qualifying for Watkins Glen on October 6th, 1973.  
> \- Denny Hulme was Jacky Ickx's teammate at the time of Francois Cevert's death. 
> 
> TRANSLATIONS:  
> \- Autre: Other  
> \- Est-ce que tu le veux?: Do you want it?  
> \- Au revoir: Goodbye  
> \- Le petit Belge: The Little Belgian  
> \- Joue avec moi: Play with me  
> \- As-tu jamais aimé?: Have you ever loved?  
> \- Oui, toujours: Yes, always  
> \- J'aime tes yeux…: I love your eyes....  
> \- Arrêtez: Stop  
> \- Pourquoi fais-tu cela?: Why are you doing this?  
> \- Parce-que je l'aime: Because I love him  
> \- Ce n'est rien, non? This is nothing, right?  
> \- Il ne peut jamais savoir: He can never know  
> \- Bien sûr: Of course  
> \- L'aimes-tu toujours?: Do you still love him?  
> \- Non: No  
> \- Aimes-tu ça?: Do you like it?  
> \- Pouvez-vous m'aimes maintenant?: Can you love me now?  
> \- Quelle?: What?  
> \- Si vous plait: Please  
> \- Je ne peux jamais être lui. François, tu ne vois pas?: I can never be him. Francois, can't you see?  
> \- Laisser: leave  
> \- À moins que tu m'aimes, pars: Unless you love me, go away.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading.


End file.
